Kocatepe Kavaklidere and Cankaya

A few streets east of the main Kocatepe road is the neo- Ottoman Kocatepe Mosque. Building began in 1977 and took 20 years to complete. The minarets of this huge structure tower over the streets below. It has a shopping centre and car park underneath and is Ankara’s largest mosque and one of the biggest in the world.

The Grand National Assembly, Turkey’s Parliament building, is half a kilometre further on and leads to where the main foreign embassies and 5-star hotels extend all the way up to the Presidential Palace. In between is the small and usually busy Kugulu Park and on the eastern side of here the glossy Karum shopping centre and the area of Kavaklidere , the lively upmarket suburb with westernised nightlife and designer shops most of which are on the street of Tunali Hilmi Road .